| レポート | The Darkhan Affiliate was wonderful. They were very well organized and very helpful if anything came up. In Darkhan our accommodations were for the most part very comfortable. We stayed two to a room in the Utuurchin Hotel, which had good showers and plenty of cable tv. Team members were able to relax and have some personal time in the evenings there, although unfortunately there was not a communal lounge that we could comfortably gather in after dinner. Meals at the restaurant there (breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner) were good and there was enough variety on the menu that everyone could usually find something they liked (vegetarians should expect surprise bits of meat in some of the potato salads though). There was some confusion over laundry — it turned out to be much more expensive that we had thought (price is per piece, not per load) and there are apparently no public laundromats that we could use, so we ended up buying a box of detergent and washing clothes in our bathroom sinks. There was an internet cafe nearby as well for folks who wanted to stay connected. We worked on two sites, both about a ten minute drive from our hotel; the first site saw slightly more progress but both went from foundation to nearly finished exteriors in just two weeks. The pace of work was near perfect — we had a variety of construction tasks we could take part in and every day was a little bit different. There were a few short lulls towards the very end but on the whole it was one of the best Habitat builds I've been on in terms of offering volunteers an opportunity to do real work and see real meaningful progress. The homeowners and their families worked very hard right alongside (and in a few cases, ahead) of us. On Wednesday of our first week, we were able to visit a local elementary school, where we played games and sang songs with a class and brought donations of school supplies from our students back in Japan. After our build we went on a three-day tour with Mongolia Expeditions, a tour company referred to us by the HFH Mongolia offices. Although we had some long bumpy rides in the van, our R&R was also extremely enjoyable, with opportunities to see a broader piece of Mongolia's countryside, as well as go horseback riding and visit several historical sites. I summary, would highly recommend Mongolia, and Darkhan, to any future GV team leaders. |
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